raised herself and saw Herbert, she moved slowly away with a quiet grace,
that strangely contrasted with her tattered garments. She was ragged like
the sea-shore, or the bunch of dripping sea-weed that she carried in her
hand; she was bare from foot to knee, and passed over the wet sand with a
gleam; the wind had been at more trouble with her hair than any loving
hand; it was black, lusterless, and tangled. The sight of rags was always
enough to move Herbert's sympathies, and he wished to speak to the little
girl, and give her something. But when he had followed her a short
distance, all at once, and without having looked round, she began to glide
away from him with a wave-like motion, dancing and leaping; till a clear
pool in the hollow of a tabular rock imbedded in the sand, arrested her
progress. Here she stood like a statue, gazing into its depth; then, with
a dart like a kingfisher, plunged half into it, caught something at which
her head and curved neck showed that she looked with satisfaction--and
again, before Herbert could come near her, was skimming along the uneven
shore. He followed, as a boy follows a lapwing; but she, like the lapwing,
gradually increased the distance between them, till he gave up the pursuit
with some disappointment, and returned to his brother and sister. More
ambitious than they, he proceeded to construct--chiefly for the sake of
the moat he intended to draw around it--a sand-castle of considerable
pretensions; but the advancing tide drove him from his stronghold before
he had begun to dig the projected fosse.

"As they returned home, they passed a group of fishermen in their long
boots and flapped sou'-westers, looking somewhat anxiously seaward. Much
to Herbert's delight, they predicted a stiff gale, and probably a storm. A
low bank of cloud had gathered along the horizon, and the wind had already
freshened; the white spots were thicker on the waves, and the sound of
their trampling on the shore grew louder.